More Than Just for Real, the Raiders Show They're a Real Super Bowl Threat

It's no longer correct to say the Oakland Raiders are for real. This is obvious. We know this. The sky is blue and there's some sort of election this week. Duh.

It's time to look at a bigger picture with the Raiders, much bigger, and two parts of that picture in particular. First, the league is better when the Raiders are good. This is a simple fact. It's a characteristic of the Raider genome that a good Oakland team is swashbuckling and sexy, liable to punch you in the mouth or run by you.

The Raiders are fun. The Raiders are important. This makes the NFL eminently more watchable.

Second, and perhaps more important, the Raiders are not just for real, they are a Super Bowl threat. If you can't see that, you're the one with a patch over your eye.

Yes, sure, the Raiders are highly flawed. In their previous game, they committed a record one cabillion penalties. Their defense, at times, has more leaks than the FBI. Their rotund kicker, Sebastian Janikowski, has been missing kicks at an unusual clip.

The team may also move to Las Vegas. Sure, no distractions there.

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But the Raiders have something in abundance, and you saw it in the team's 30-20 win over Denver on Sunday night: guts. They may have cracks and faults, but they've got guts and guts is enough in the mess that is the AFC.

They play with a combination of joy and recklessness. They're the AFC's version of the Cowboys. They don't know they're not supposed to win. They don't care that everyone predicted they'd stink. They just play hard and crazy and aggressive.

You saw all of the various great and flawed machinations of the Raiders against Denver. That offense burned a good Denver defense. At the half, while the score was 20-10, it could have easily been 40-10. That offense can dominate any defense, but the miscues and penalties make them fallible.

But man are they fun to watch and boy are they a legit threat. A real, hardcore Super Bowl threat.

Can they beat the Patriots at Foxborough in a title game? Probably not. No team can make the large number of mistakes the Raiders do and still beat Tom Brady and Bill Belichick. The Raiders would make it interesting, though. They would give any team fits, including the Patriots.

They ran for over 200 yards against the Broncos, the best defense in football. Anything is possible with this team.

"We're going forward," running back Latavius Murray, who had three rushing touchdowns, told NBC after the contest. "This is a new team. A new mindset."

A winning one. We haven't seen that with the Raiders in quite some time.

Yes, one reason why the Raiders are legitimate is the conference is a mess. The Ravens and Steelers are 4-4. The Texans are 5-3, but they are quarterbacked by Mock Osweiler. They're no threat.

The best teams in the AFC not named the Patriots are in the Raiders' division. Kansas City beat Oakland in October, but the Raiders are the better team now, just three weeks later.

The Broncos defense, as NBC reported, since the beginning of 2015, has been ranked first in opposing passer rating, passing yards allowed, pass yards per play and sacks. Denver's defense has been the gold standard, yet the Raiders ran the football at will against Denver on Sunday night, and quarterback Derek Carr looked like Ken Stabler.

The Broncos are also physically banged up, and they can't put up enough points to stay with Oakland. For now, Trevor Siemian just isn't good enough.

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You saw typical Raiders as they built a commanding 10-point halftime lead, and you saw typical Raiders as they allowed the Broncos to hang around in the third quarter. Then, with just over seven minutes left in the fourth, the Raiders looked to have the game well in hand after sacking Siemian and recovering his fumble. On the next play, Carr almost threw an interception—T.J. Ward's pick was overturned after review.

The Raiders recovered from that close call to score and make it 30-13. Less than a minute later, they gave up a touchdown on a 69-yard screen where the Raiders tackled like the Colts. Oakland snatched the life from the Broncos and then tried to give that life right back.

The Raiders are at times as flighty as they are gutsy.

The talent though...the explosiveness...the raw, nuclear energy. It's all there. The Raiders are tied with the Patriots and Cowboys atop the NFL with seven wins. All there, definitely. So is the coaching. It would be a mistake not to make Jack Del Rio one of the leading candidates for Coach of the Year.

So here we are again, all these years after the Raiders lost in the Super Bowl to the coach they traded away, Jon Gruden, and after years of irrelevance and mockery—no winning season since 2002—the Raiders are good again. The Raiders are important again.

And yes, the Raiders are Super Bowl contenders again.

Mike Freeman covers the NFL for Bleacher Report.